Chapter 82

* * * *

Black Friday was the day everyone shopped to get the best buys they could before Christmas, and the stores were madhouses. Not that I knew this from personal experience, since if it happened to be one of those rare occasions when I was in the country, I still wasn’t dumb enough to go out on the roads that day. I’d heard Ms. Parker talking about it afterward, about the asshole drivers who’d tried to steal her parking spots and the fantastic buys she’d scored.

I had better things to do, and so did Quinn.

We were in my kitchen, and while I fried bacon and eggs for our breakfast, he brewed the coffee and toasted some whole wheat bread he’d insisted we buy. I didn’t see anything wrong with Wonder Bread—it built strong bones twelve ways, didn’t it?—but I’d been overruled.

Quinn’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the LCD screen and flipped it open. “Good morning, Mother.”

He listened for a minute before handing the phone to me.